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Tag Archives: Other Condensed Matter

Circularly polarized photons have the Berry curvature in the semiclassical regime. Based on the kinetic equation for such chiral photons, we derive the (non)equilibrium expression of the photon current in the direction of the vorticity. We briefly discuss the relevance of this “photonic chiral vortical effect” in pulsars and rotating massive stars and its possible realization in semiconductors.

We report that the saturation/CGC model of gluon distribution is unstable under action of the chaotic solution in a nonlinear QCD evolution equation, and it evolves to the distribution with a sharp peak at the critical momentum. We find that this gluon condensation is caused by a new kind of shadowing-antishadowing effects, and it leads to a series of unexpected effects in high energy hadron collisions including astrophysical events. For example, the extremely intense fluctuations in the transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions of the gluon jets present the gluon-jet bursts; a sudden increase of the proton-proton cross sections may fill the GZK suppression; the blocking QCD evolution will restrict the maximum available energy of the hadron-hadron colliders.

Neutron stars are astrophysical laboratories of many extremes of physics. Their rich phenomenology provides insights into the state and composition of matter at densities which cannot be reached in terrestrial experiments. Since the core of a mature neutron star is expected to be dominated by superfluid and superconducting components, observations also probe the dynamics of large-scale quantum condensates. The testing and understanding of the relevant theory tends to focus on the interface between the astrophysics phenomenology and nuclear physics. The connections with low-temperature experiments tend to be ignored. However, there has been dramatic progress in understanding laboratory condensates (from the different phases of superfluid helium to the entire range of superconductors and cold atom condensates). In this review, we provide an overview of these developments, compare and contrast the mathematical descriptions of laboratory condensates and neutron stars and summarise the current experimental state-of-the-art. This discussion suggests novel ways that we may make progress in understanding neutron star physics using low-temperature laboratory experiments.

Direct detection of gravitational waves is opening a new window onto our universe. Here, we study the sensitivity to continuous-wave strain fields of a kg-scale optomechanical system formed by the acoustic motion of superfluid helium-4 parametrically coupled to a superconducting microwave cavity. This narrowband detection scheme can operate at very high $Q$-factors, while the resonant frequency is tunable through pressurization of the helium in the 0.1-1.5 kHz range. The detector can therefore be tuned to a variety of astrophysical sources and can remain sensitive to a particular source over a long period of time. For reasonable experimental parameters, we find that strain fields on the order of $h\sim 10^{-23} /\sqrt{\rm Hz}$ are detectable. We show that the proposed system can significantly improve the limits on gravitational wave strain from nearby pulsars within a few months of integration time.

We show that a two-excitation process in superfluid helium, combined with sensitivity to meV energy depositions, can probe dark matter down to the ~keV warm dark matter mass limit. This mass reach is three orders of magnitude below what can be probed with ordinary nuclear recoils in helium at the same energy resolution. The kinematics of the process requires the two athermal excitations to have nearly equal and opposite momentum, potentially providing a built-in coincidence mechanism for controlling backgrounds.

We point out that half-quantized non-Abelian vortices exist as the minimum energy states in rotating neutron $^3P_2$ superfluids in the inner cores of magnetars with magnetic field greater than $3 \times 10^{15}$ Gauss, while they do not in ordinary neutron stars with smaller magnetic fields. One integer vortex is split into two half-quantized vortices. The number of vortices is about $10^{19}$ and they are separated at about $\mu$m in a vortex lattice for typical parameters, while the vortex core size is about 10-100 fm. They are non-Abelian vortices characterized by non-Abelian first homotopy group, and consequently when two vortices corresponding to non-commutative elements collide, a rung vortex must be created between them, implying the formation of an entangled vortex network inside the cores of magnetars. We find the spontaneous magnetization in the vortex core showing anti-ferromagnetism whose typical magnitude is about $10^{8-9}$ Gauss that is ten times larger than that of integer vortices, when external magnetic fields are present along the vortex line.

Dissociation of gas hydrates below 240 K leads to the formation of a metastable form of water ice, so called cubic ice (Ic). Through its defective nature and small particle size the surface film composed of such material is incapable of creating any significant diffusion barrier. Above 160 K, cubic ice gradually transforms to the stable hexagonal (Ih) form on laboratory time scales. The annealing, coupled with a parallel decomposition of gas hydrates, accelerates as temperature rises but already above 190 K the first process prevails, transforming cubic stacking sequences in-to ordinary Ih ice within a few minutes. Remaining stacking faults are removed through very slow isothermal annealing or after heating up above 240 K. The role of the proportion of cubic stacking on the decomposition rate is discussed. A better understanding of the dissociation kinetics at low temperatures is particularly im-portant for the critical evaluation of existing hypotheses that consider clathrates as a potential medium that actively participate in geological processes or is able to store gases (e.g. CH4, CO2 or Xe) in environments like comets, icy moons (i. e. Titan, Europa, Enceladus) or on Mars. Here, we present kinetics studies on the dissociation of CO2 clathrates at isothermal and isobaric conditions between 170 and 190K and mean Martian surface pressure. We place special attention to the formed ice and demonstrate its influence on the dissociation rates with a combination of neutron diffraction studies (performed on D20 at ILL/Grenoble) and cryo-SEM. More detailed crystallo-graphic information has been acquired via a flexible stacking-fault model capable of revealing the time evolution of the defect structure of ice Ic in terms of stacking probabilities and crystal size.